E is for Extrication
by Kelmin
Summary: Station 51 deals with a difficult extrication situation at a car accident. WARNING for child in distress. Originally posted in a different form in a longer story I've posted to AO3. If you read 'me' there, you'll recognize this,


A/N: **Warning** for child in peril. The extrication scene in this story is from another story of mine that's on AO3, but I liked the scene on its own, so here it is. The idea of the specifics of the accident came to me when I was trying to think of really tricky vehicle extrication scenarios that didn't involve horrible things like cliffs, rivers, fires, trains, or crevasses. We had a vehicle extrication training where the scenario was that a car was wedged between two immovable objects, blocking all four doors, but cutting the roof off the car isn't actually as hard as it sounds. This one? Would be hard. Let us hope it remains fictional.

**E is for Extrication**

The squad pulled into the station. It was the first time they'd been back in quarters since roll call. Roy and Johnny had missed lunch, and it was late enough that dinner might be in questionable shape. Johnny groaned at the thought of a mushy meal.

"I know," Roy replied, not even having to ask what the problem was. "And we're barely halfway through the shift yet."

"At least Stoker's cooking today," Johnny said. "He was gonna make his lasagna. Which is terrific."

"Good," Roy said. "I could use something terrific right about now."

The rest of the crew greeted them as they entered the ready room. The lasagna had held up well in the oven, as Johnny and Roy discovered when Mike set plates down in front of them. They ate quickly, and had just finished when the entire station was called out to a motor vehicle accident with injuries.

The squad arrived at the scene, which was in a construction zone on the highway. Roy pulled past the accident scene to make room for the engine, which Mike positioned to protect the scene from oncoming traffic, since it was better to have a dented fire engine than a smashed crew.

Johnny and Roy got out of the squad and looked at the scene. A large sedan had somehow rolled onto its roof, and then slid along until it got wedged between two concrete barriers just off the shoulder. The barriers, which were in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, formed a 'V' shape, with the front end of the car wedged as far as it would go into the tip of the 'V.' All four side doors were blocked tightly by the multi-ton cement barricades. The only means of access, as far as the paramedics could see, was the crumpled rear windshield, which was less than a foot high after being compressed by the weight of the car. The posts that connected the roof to the heavy body of the car were sagging under weight they were never intended to bear.

If they hadn't been wearing helmets, Johnny and Roy would surely have been scratching their heads, wondering how to proceed with the situation. The doors were blocked, and they couldn't cut the roof off, since it was under the car.

Through the milky spiderweb of shattered laminated glass, Johnny could see movement.

"There's definitely still someone alive in there," he said, as Cap and Mike joined him at the rear of the car.

"Think you could squeeze in there to get a look at the patients, Gage?" Cap asked.

"Sure thing, Cap, but to be honest, I don't think it's a good idea for me to go in until that car is stabilized," Johnny said.

"No, definitely not. Those posts were meant to hold up the car's roof, not the entire rest of it. They could buckle at any second. Stoker, Lopez, Kelly—let's get some jacks in there." Cap said. "Gage, DeSoto—see what you can find out without putting yourselves inside the vehicle."

Roy approached the car from the front, and Johnny got as close as he could to the rear windshield. "Fire department! Can anyone hear me in there?" Johnny shouted.

"Help!" a small voice cried. "We're stuck!"

"All right—we're gonna help you get out," Johnny said, dying a little inside when he heard that the voice was a child's. "Try not to move around too much, okay?"

"Okay. My daddy's really stuck," the voice said, muffled through the glass.

"How many people are inside the car?" Johnny asked.

"Just me and my daddy. He's driving. I'm too little."

"Okay, we're gonna get you out, all right? Are you hurt?"

"My feet hurt a lot. They're smushed under my daddy's seat. And I'm upside down! I was crying, but Daddy said we'd be okay and I stopped because he said I'm a big boy."

"And how about your dad?" Johnny asked.

"He said he wasn't feeling good, and then he went to sleep. I can hear him snoring."

"All right, kiddo," Johnny said. "The other firemen and I are gonna get you and your dad out as soon as we can. You take it easy, okay?"

Roy returned from the front of the vehicle, and Johnny looked at him inquiringly.

Roy shook his head. "I didn't get any response from the driver's seat. I can't see or hear a thing," he said quietly.

"All right," Cap said, overhearing the exchange. "You two pull out the rear windshield, for now, while the other guys are stabilizing this mess."

"Copy that," Johnny said. He crouched down at the back of the car again. "Hey, kiddo? What's your name?"

"Uh, it's really Bartholomew, but everyone calls me Buddy."

Johnny imagined he could hear the kid blushing. "Okay, Buddy. My name's Johnny. Here's what's gonna happen now. I want you to put your hands over your face, and keep your face pointed to the front of the car if you can. My friend Roy and I are gonna pull out the back window of the car so we can get to you."

"Okay," Buddy said wanly. "Should my daddy cover his face up too?"

Roy and Johnny looked at each other. "Is he awake?"

"No, he's still sleeping, I think. I can hear him snoring."

"It's okay, Buddy; I don't think the glass from the back will get to the front."

"Oh. Okay."

Johnny jammed the pick end of his Halligan through a corner of the laminated glass, and put a good-sized hole in it. With a gloved hand, he carefully pulled sheets of pebbled glass away, while Roy did the same from the other side. Within two minutes, the rear of the car was open, and they could finally see inside.

Marco approached from the front of the vehicle.

"Cap, the front's as stable as it's gonna get," he said.

"Okay—John, Roy—pull out the front windshield while they're jacking and cribbing the back, here," Cap said. "Lopez, there's a boy named Buddy inside, conscious and alert."

"I'll talk him through it," Marco promised, as he and Kelly and Mike began the process of shoring up the back of the car.

Johnny and Roy repeated the glass-removal process at the front of the vehicle, and were finally able to see their adult patient.

He didn't look good. He was unconscious, skin pale and clammy. He was crumpled against the steering column, or more accurately, the steering column was crumpled against him. He was wedged in tightly, and hanging upside-down.

Johnny immediately recognized the snoring sound as the man's tongue blocking his airway.

"Roy—we gotta secure this guy's airway. Toss me an NPA, will ya? Large."

Roy grabbed the nasopharyngeal airway—a small rubber tube, flared on one end like the bell of a trumpet, that would slide through a nostril and between the man's tongue and the back of his throat—and opened the package. He smeared the tube liberally with the surgical lubricant that would ease its journey through the nasal passage, and handed it carefully to Johnny.

Johnny carefully but quickly inserted the airway, and the snoring sound ceased, as air was able to flow more freely through the tube, taking the path of least resistance.

"Let's get some O2 on this guy," Johnny said—unnecessarily, as it turned out, since Roy was already handing him an oxygen mask. Johnny placed the mask on their patient.

"Daddy? Did you wake up?" Buddy hollered from the back seat.

"Your dad's still asleep, Buddy," Johnny called. "We just gave him something to help him breathe better."

"Oh. That's good," the child said. "Can we get out now?"

"Car's cribbed, Gage!" Cap yelled from the rear of the car.

"Well, first things first, Buddy. I'm gonna sneak in here as best I can and see how you and your dad are doing. And my friends outside are gonna work on gettin' us all outta here."

"My feet are really, really, stuck!" Buddy cried. Johnny could hear a tremble in the child's voice.

"I know, Buddy. But I think we're gonna have to get your dad out first, because … uh, his seat is on your feet," Johnny said. He didn't want to completely lie to the child—it was true that the seat would have to move to extricate the child, but the main reason they had to get the dad out first was that he was in bad, bad shape.

He got his first set of vitals on the driver, which were discouraging.

"Roy, some response to pain stimulus. Pulse 134, regular but thready, BP 86/54, respirations 30 and shallow," he called to Roy. He could hear Roy relaying the information to Rampart. He gently palpated every part of the man he could reach.

"I'm not getting any major fractures or bleeding where I can reach. I think it's …" Johnny thought for a second about how to word his findings so as not to alarm Buddy. "I think it's all in the area of the steering wheel."

"Understood," Roy said.

Johnny stretched his arm as far as he could around the back of the bench seat, but wasn't able to reach anywhere remotely near Buddy's trapped feet. He slithered and wiggled his way out of the crumpled mess of the front passenger compartment, and stood up. The rest of the crew was getting ready to start the extrication process, gathering heavy tools and equipment.

"Roy, I'm gonna go check the kid out while you're talking to Rampart. I think I oughta be able to get an IV in the dad from inside the vehicle," Johnny said, as he climbed over one of the concrete barriers.

He grabbed a heavy canvas tarp from the pile of equipment the crew had assembled. He laid it down over the edge of where the back windshield had been, extending it over the ceiling, which was now the floor. He took a deep breath, and blew it out to flatten himself further as he wrestled his body into the tight space between the roof of the car and the top of the back seat. Lying on his back, he looked up and to the side, and could finally see the child he'd been talking to.

"Hi, Buddy. How're you holdin' up back here?"

"I'm not holding up. The seatbelt is holding me up," Buddy said, with the literalness of the six-year-old that he appeared to be.

"Okay, then. How are you doing?"

"My feet really hurt," Buddy said, voice quavering. "And there's something in my eye. I keep rubbing it, but it's sticky."

"Well, it looks like maybe you have a little cut on your head, and it's bleeding into your eye."

"Oh," Buddy said, voice sounding smaller than ever.

"Listen, I'm gonna check your pulse, and your blood pressure, and your breathing, so you just try not to talk for a minute, okay?"

The child didn't answer, clearly heavily invested in following Johnny's instructions to a 'T.' Rather than shouting out the vitals, he memorized the numbers.

"Buddy, I have to get out for a minute, and then I'm gonna get back in the front with your dad, okay? I'll get right inside the car, and you'll be able to see me and hear me just fine, okay?"

Buddy didn't respond, and Johnny became alarmed until he realized the most likely reason for the child's unresponsiveness.

"Uh—you can talk now," he added.

"Okay," Buddy said.

Johnny started to try to push himself out of the car, but he quickly realized that pulling himself in was an easier task than pushing himself out.

"Uh, Cap? Anyone out there?" Johnny said.

Someone patted his boot. "Yeah, I'm right here," said Stoker.

"Can you maybe pull me out by my feet? I'm kinda not in a good position to push, here," he said.

Broad hands grabbed his ankles, and Johnny was soon out in daylight again. He took the hand Mike extended, and let Mike help him up. He brushed crumbs of glass off himself; the sharp, almost cubical pebbles dropped into a pile of ropes and chains at their feet.

"Thanks," he said to Mike_._

"You're welcome," Mike said_._

"How the heck are we gonna do this extrication?" Johnny said quietly, even though it was unlikely the child would understand what he was saying even if he could hear. "This looks pretty damned impossible."

"Well, you know our Cap. He's on the radio now with someone from the construction company who's on the way, ETA less than ten minutes, to work the crane to move the barrier on the driver's side."

Johnny frowned at the vehicle. "Won't it be mighty unstable once one of the barriers is gone?"

"Ah, that's what Kelly and Marco and I figured out. We're gonna pass chains through the passenger compartment, and hold the car against the remaining barrier," Mike said. "I'll put tension on the chains by backing the engine a bit."

"That sounds pretty reasonable," Johnny said. He gestured to Roy, who was motioning to him to return to the front of the car. "I gotta take care of the driver, but I'll help pass chains through when I can."

Johnny crossed over to the front of the car, where Roy had just finished on the radio with Rampart.

"They want normal saline, wide open, and monitor as possible," Roy said. "You sure you're gonna be okay in there?"

Johnny sighed. "Yeah. I can't say I like it, but there's no way you'll fit. I'll need to help pass some chains through the car anyhow, for what the guys are doing to stabilize the vehicle, so I can do that in between monitoring vitals. 'Cause we really gotta get this guy outta here."

He returned to the front of the car, and reported in to Rampart on the boy's condition. He filled Roy in on the plan, and got back inside the car.

~!~!~!~

Mike watched as Johnny slithered into the front of the car through the narrow opening between the dashboard and the roof. He hated comparing his colleague to a snake, but there wasn't a better word to reflect the apparent ease with which he managed to get himself into the tight space.

"Stoker," Cap said, causing Mike to jump as he turned.

"Yeah, Cap?"

"Sorry. You talk to Gage about the plan?" Cap asked.

"Yeah. He's in the car."

"Good. Kelly, Lopez, you two work with Gage on getting those chains through. Stoker, you get the chains anchored to the eyebolts on the engine. By the time we've got that done, the crane operator oughta be here, and then we can start cutting. Stoker, I'll want you on the Jaws; this is gonna be a delicate operation."

Everyone nodded. Cap clapped his gloved hands sharply. "Okay, boys, let's not wait for that crane guy to show up. We want everything ready the second he gets here."

Mike made quick work of anchoring the chains to the front of the engine, and returned to the scene to help get the chains in place around the vehicle.

The final chain just wasn't going where they wanted it to.

Johnny's muffled voice emerged from the car. "I can't reach back that far."

Cap looked at the trio of firemen before him. "Stoker, Lopez, you're both about the same, uh, diameter, but Mike, you've got longer arms. See if you can squeeze into the back seat and help Gage pass that chain through."

Mike nodded, but looked skeptically at the opening where the rear windshield used to be.

"No way I'm fitting with my coat on," he said, stripping off the coat and laying it down over the edge of the window frame. He lay down on his back, and craned his neck to see where he was going. He could see a small hand dangling in his path.

"Hey, kiddo—I'm Mike. I'm another fireman. I'm coming in to help for a minute, okay?"

"Okay. I sure hope you're skinny like Johnny, because there's not a lotta room in here," Buddy said.

"Yeah, I know," Mike said. He grunted as he crammed himself through the opening, and bit back a swear word as the top of the back seat compressed his lower chest as he breathed.

"Gage? Where's that chain?" Mike said.

"Mike? How'd you even get in here?"

"Just … where's the chain?" Mike said, each shallow breath a struggle.

"Here," Johnny said.

Mike could hear the chain rattle slightly behind his head. He made all manner of unpleasant sounds as he wrenched his arm over his head in the tight quarters, and finally connected a hand with some part of Johnny's arm. He felt his way towards him, and got a hand on the chain.

"'kay," he gasped.

"Got it?" Johnny asked.

"Yep," Mike grunted. His muscles screamed as he extended his arm as far as he could towards the side window.

Johnny read his mind, and shouted. "Hey, Mike's got the chain up to the window! Someone grab it already!"

A gloved hand contacted Mike's hand, and a disembodied voice said "Got it!"

Mike let go with relief, and started to try to make his way out of the car. He put a hand over his head and pushed on the seat in front of him, but he didn't budge.

"Shit," he gasped. "Stuck!" He forced himself to breathe slowly, and as deeply as possible in his current compressed situation.

"You said a bad word," Buddy said, sounding impressed.

"Hey!" Johnny shouted again. "Someone pull Mike out, right now!"

Mike tried to stay calm, but was starting to get that feeling like he couldn't breathe. And this time it was true. He reminded himself that if he got in, he'd be able to get out, but he couldn't help it that his heart was pounding. A pair of hands grabbed his boots and pulled, but he still didn't budge.

He must have made some kind of sound—probably a girly, squeaky sound, Mike realized in dismay.

The car creaked, and Mike swore that the pressure on his chest and abdomen increased. He breathed harder and faster as he imagined the weight of the car coming down on top of him, cutting off his ability to breathe. A second later, though, he heard the clicking sound that must have been someone using the bottle jacks stabilizing the car to raise it ever so slightly, and the pressure eased. The jacks stopped clicking, and the hands that had been busy pumping the jacks up a few centimeters grabbed his ankles again, and pulled him right out.

He lay there, exhausted, breathing like he'd just run a marathon. Cap looked down at him.

"Whoa, you okay there, pal?" Cap asked.

Mike nodded as he panted. He still couldn't seem to catch his breath, even though he was no longer being squeezed by the car.

"Sit up," Cap said, reaching a hand down to pull Mike up.

Mike sat up, and tried to catch his breath. He knew he should probably be breathing into a paper bag, but if he did that in front of Cap … well, it was irrelevant, because it wasn't going to happen. He forced himself to hold his breath for a few seconds, and was able to break out of the hyperventilation cycle.

"Sorry," Mike said, when he had control over his breathing. "I really got squeezed in there. Took me a minute to catch my breath."

"Well, if the crane operator weren't going to be looking for me any second, I would've gone in myself, since I might just be a little longer and skinnier than you," Cap said. "But—oh, that's gotta be him. Dispatch said he'd have a police escort. Make sure everything's ready to pull those chains, then get the engine ready to back."

"Got it," Mike said. He picked up his turnout coat, and while he was bent down, he shouted into the car.

"Hey, Gage? The crane operator's here. We'll have that barrier moved soon, and then we'll get you guys out of there."

"Make your best time, Mike," Johnny said, using the phrase that meant 'hurry the hell up, this guy's really bad,' but wouldn't alarm any family listening.

"Copy that," Mike replied. He coordinated briefly with Marco and Kelly, and they agreed the chains were ready to be pulled by the engine.

He leaned down by the front opening of the car.

"Hey, Johnny? I'm gonna tighten up the chains, to pull the car up against the barrier that's gonna stay in place. Expect some minor shifting, but give a holler to Marco if it doesn't seem right, and I'll quit."

"Okay. Thanks for the warning," Johnny said.

Mike returned to the engine, and when Marco gave him the signal, he backed up about a foot, until he could see the chain tighten. Marco motioned for him to back up a little more, and then held both forearms up crossed in the 'X' signal to stop.

Mike waited in the driver's seat and watched at the crane operator began removing the Jersey barrier from the far side of the vehicle. Within two minutes, the barrier was gone. The plan had worked-the car was held tightly against the remaining barrier by the tension of the chains.

Mike set the brake, and got out of the driver's seat. He retrieved some bright yellow 'fire scene' tape from behind his seat, and looped it around the steering wheel, and over the door, as a signal to anyone who might be tempted to move the engine that they mustn't do so.

Back at the car, Mike and Cap looked at the driver's side, which was now completely exposed. Kelly was trying to pry the door open, but it wasn't working. Marco had already started the generator that powered the hydraulic compressor that ran the Jaws, which looked like it would be the best tool to start with. The Jaws could pop the hinges on the door without the vibrations, noise, and sparks that the K-12 would cause.

"I'm gonna start with the Jaws, Cap," Mike said. "We might need the K-12. We'll see."

"Do it," Cap said.

Mike jammed the closed tips of the hydraulic jaws, which resembled gigantic pliers, between the door and the frame, on the side of the door with the hinges. The hinges tended to be weaker than the door-latch assembly. Before he started, he could hear Johnny in the car talking to the child, who was crying again.

As Mike turned the control on the tool, the powerful jaws opened, prying the metal of the door and the frame away from each other as Mike kept the tool in place, using all his body weight to push it against the car with his hip as his hands kept the alignment where he wanted it.

After a minute, the hinges popped, and Kelly tried the pry-bar again, but the door was still jammed firmly in place. There was no other solution—he'd have to cut the latch off the door with the K-12, and if that didn't work, he'd have to cut the door itself away.

"No dice with the Jaws," he called into the car. "Gonna have to cut."

"Okay," Johnny said.

Once again Mike heard Johnny speaking to the child. Mike picked up the saw, which Marco had already started, and began cutting. Sparks flew, and the metal screeched as it parted. Each time he backed off to see where he'd gotten, he could hear the child screaming hysterically, and could hear Johnny desperately trying to comfort him. The adults knew, though, that time was of the essence, and getting the boy's father out of the car was an immediate imperative.

Mike had learned to steel himself against sounds he heard coming from entrapped victims he was helping to extricate, but he hadn't yet learned to ignore the fact that his colleague and friend was inside the twisted piece of metal he was trying to overpower with his tools. Except for the lack of pain, which, Mike admitted, was a big difference, Johnny wasn't much better off than the victims. He was scrunched into a tight space, breathing impeded by the pressure of the car against his body. The noise inside the vehicle would be deafening. The car would be creaking and shifting, and Johnny would certainly have the feeling that everything could come crashing down on top of him at any second, crushing his body into a lump that wouldn't be able to move enough to breathe. And of course, there was always the unhappy feeling that a spark from the saw against the metal could start up a fire.

_Focus, Stoker,_ he told himself._ The faster you get done, the faster they get out. _

He steadied his hand, and braced the weight of the saw against his hip, and continued cutting. Thirty second and thousands of sparks later, the latch assembly yielded, and he backed away. Kelly and Marco hauled on the door, and it came away from the car. The driver's left arm, freed from its entrapment against the door, dangled, fingers touching the pavement.

Roy was standing by with the backboard and trauma kit. Mike assisted in the rapid extrication that was required now that the victim was accessible, guarding the arm with the IV and passing the bag of fluids out of the car as Roy, Marco, Chet, and Cap got the still-unresponsive patient onto the backboard. Johnny remained in the vehicle with the child, who was still whimpering after the undoubtedly terrifying experience he'd just endured.

Once the man was backboarded and under Roy's care, the firefighters turned their attention to extricating the child.

"Cap, can I borrow Stoker for a little while?" Johnny asked from the front seat. "Our passenger has already met him."

"Sure thing, Gage. The rest of us guys are just gonna do some mopping up," Cap replied.

"You think we can slide the seat forwards, Johnny?" Mike asked.

"Worth a try," Johnny said. "You hear that, Buddy? My friend's gonna try to move the seat so we can get your feet out. If it hurts a lot more, I want you to say, okay?"

"Okay," Buddy sniffled. "Is my daddy okay?"

"My friend Roy's getting him to the hospital right now," Johnny said. "They're gonna take really good care of him. And Mike should have you out in a jiffy."

"Are you the one who got scared before?" Buddy asked.

Mike laughed. "You bet, pal. Lemme tell you, you're doing a super job of being brave. I was really scared in the back of the car, but you're doing great."

"I'm really scared, too," Buddy said.

"It's okay to be scared. Now, I wanna get you out of here, okay? I'm gonna move the seat forward really slowly. You yell if it hurts a lot more, or if it seems like it's getting tighter instead of looser, okay?"

"Yeah," Buddy said.

Mike felt around under—or above, in this case—the driver's side of the bench seat, until he found the bar that would slide the seat forward. He squeezed the bar towards the underside of the seat. As soon as he did, the seat shot forward, and Buddy yelped.

"You okay?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah—the seat just flew off my feet! I can get out now," Buddy said. Mike saw him starting to undo his seatbelt.

"Whoa, whoa, there, pardner—lemme give you a hand," Mike said. "You're hanging upside down like a bat. And I don't want you to hurt your feet any more. So we're gonna let Johnny come out here, and then the two of us will make sure you get out safely."

"Okay."

There was rustling and banging from the front seat.

"Uh, Mike? Can you pull me out again?"

Mike chuckled, and once again hauled on Johnny's boots. He pulled Johnny to a standing position, and johnny once again dusted himself off.

"All right," Mike said. "Let's get our little passenger out."

"Okay."

Both men knelt down next to the open side of the car.

"Okay, Buddy—here's what's gonna happen now," Johnny said. "I'm gonna hold you up, while Mike undoes your seatbelt and gets it outta the way. Mike's gonna hold onto your legs, because I don't want your sore feet to bump anything. How does that sound?"

"Good, I guess. My feet really, really hurt," Buddy said. Mike could hear trembling in the child's voice again. "And, uh …"

"What, Buddy? Is something else hurt? Because if it is, I need to know. It's really important to keep you safe," Johnny said.

"No," Buddy said in a tiny voice. "But …" He began to cry again. "I think I had an accident," he said through his sobs.

"Aw, that's okay," Johnny said. "Grown-ups have accidents when something like this happens too, let me tell you. But we'll put a blanket on you, and nobody will ever know."

"Okay." Buddy let out a shuddering breath. "I'm ready to get out."

In one coordinated movement, Mike and Johnny removed the child from the car, setting him gently on the blanket that someone had already set out for them. Mike wrapped the blanket around the child, ignoring the damp spot on his front. It was less easy for him to ignore the bloody left shoe, though.

"What can I get, Gage?"

"Weeeeell, I think the biophone has already gone with Roy," Johnny said. "So let's have dispatch get a relay going to Rampart. So I'll need an HT, and the drug box and the trauma box."

"Got it," Mike said.

He retrieved an HT, and talked to the dispatcher to get the relay going. He moved the equipment Johnny needed from where Roy had left it in front of the car.

"Where's my daddy?" Buddy asked.

"Remember, my friend Roy is taking him to the hospital in an ambulance. They might even be there already. And you and me are gonna go to the same hospital, in another ambulance, in just a minute," Johnny said, as he wrote the boy's vital signs down in a small notebook. "Okay—I'm gonna take your shoes off, as gently as I can, so I can take a look."

Buddy whimpered as Johnny eased the right shoe off, and outright screamed as the left shoe came off. Johnny subtly maneuvered the bright yellow blanket to shield the foot from the child's vision. Mike wished he couldn't see it, either, but that wasn't really important.

"Sorry, Buddy; I know that really hurt. It looks like your left foot is broken," Johnny said. "I'm gonna wrap it up before we get in the ambulance, to keep it safe on the way. That's gonna hurt a little—not like getting your shoe off, though. And then we'll go to the hospital, and they'll take real good care of you. Mike, hand me a vacuum splint, will ya?"

Mike handed Johnny the splint and the pump, along with the HT, as the dispatcher had made the phone patch to Rampart. For the next few minutes, Mike's job was mostly to help keep Buddy calm while Johnny started an IV and splinted his crushed foot, which went better than Mike had thought it might, probably thanks to a couple milligrams of morphine. He held the kid's hand on the way to the ambulance, and waved goodbye as he shut the doors. He slapped the rear doors twice in a signal to the driver that they were ready to roll, and returned to the scene.

Marco and Kelly were returning equipment to the engine, and Cap was talking with a sheriff's deputy. Cap looked up when Mike approached.

"Stoker—we're all set, I think. How's the kid?"

Mike shook his head. "Tough as nails, Cap. One of his feet was pretty badly crushed under the seat. But he's doing okay. I'm sure Johnny will follow up at Rampart sometime tonight."

Cap sighed. "Well, Roy said the driver was touch and go. I just wish we hadn't taken so long with the extrication."

Mike looked back at the car, which the wrecker was just starting to right. "I don't see what we could've done differently, even as we're Monday-morning-quarterbacking it right now. It was just a totally bizarre situation."

"That's for sure," Cap said. "We've seen cars on their lids, and we've had situations where all four doors have been blocked, but never anything quite like this."

"It'd make a good case study for a training exercise," Mike said.

Cap raised his eyebrows. "Good thinking, Stoker! Say, if we have some spare time on our next shift, why don't you write it up?"

"Sure," Mike said.

"That's some good Captain-like thinking, there, Mike."

"Uh, thanks, Cap! And—sorry about freaking out, there," Mike said, feeling like that uncomfortable moment needed to be acknowledged.

Cap waved him off. "Hell, you were fine, Stoker. I could see the posts were compressing. Anyone would've felt a little tight in that situation."

Mike knew he'd been close to panicking, but he also knew he'd gotten himself out of the panic attack just fine. So what Cap didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Thanks, Cap."

"Any time, pal. Now, whaddaya say we get back to the barn?"

"Sounds good."

~!~!~!~

The shift eased up after the difficult extrication, and there were no more calls for the engine until lights out. Mike used the time to write some notes about the bizarre scenario, while the rest of the men watched television. The squad got called out to a 'man-down' incident at a restaurant just before ten.

Roy and Johnny returned quickly—the man had been choking, but had cleared his airway on his own before they arrived, but seemed to be having some airway swelling, so they convinced him that he should go to Rampart. After they dropped this patient off, they checked on their patients from the car wreck, and returned to the station with reasonably good news.

"How are they, John?" Cap asked.

"Well, the driver had a ruptured spleen, but we got him out in time. He regained consciousness not too long after we dropped him off," Johnny said, "right before they were prepping him for surgery. The kid's in surgery for the foot, and Dr. Early couldn't tell me how bad it really was. But his toes were pink when we got to Rampart, so that's a good sign."

Johnny flopped down onto the sofa, bouncing the lazy basset hound slightly.

"Man, I wouldn't mind if we didn't have one like that for a while," Johnny said. "That was a tight squeeze."

"Tell me about it," Stoker replied. "I felt like I was being squeezed to death by a boa constrictor, and I was only in there for like two minutes. Or maybe it was a hundred years. I can't remember."

"I think it was a hundred years," Johnny said. "Anyhow—any of that lasagna left?"

"Yeah, some, wrapped in tin foil in the fridge. But do you really want to eat that right before lights out?" Mike asked.

Johnny nodded, as he went to the fridge. "Yep. Maybe if I put on, say, twenty pounds or so, I won't get made to go into tight places so much."

Roy looked up from the newspaper he was reading at the table. "Don't count on it, Junior," he said. "What I think will happen is that the tight spaces will just be a little tighter."

Johnny took his hand off the neatly-packaged lasagna, and silently closed the fridge.

**The End**

**A/N: **They never used NPAs in the show, but I would guess they had them back then. They're a remarkably simple and effective way to keep an airway open, but a bit gross in concept. Wikipedia has a good piece about them if you're curious.


End file.
